


Change

by Dabberdees



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Gen, I hope your parents signed your permission slip for this Feels Trip, Regeneration, actually caused myself emotional pain writing this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 11:22:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19294729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dabberdees/pseuds/Dabberdees
Summary: The Fam, long since gone from the TARDIS show back up as reminders and have a few words for the Doctor as she begins her regeneration.





	Change

**Author's Note:**

> With Eleven seeing Amy, and Twelve seeing Bill and Clara I thought, what if Thirteen sees her Fam during her final moments and decided to write it.

Her newer friends help lead her back to the TARDIS, her sanctity the interior familiar but different from the first time she saw her. Seemed the ship herself mourned when _The Fam_ left for the last time all those years ago now.

“We’ll get you back, Doctor,” Her newer friends said as they smiled down at her, not fully understanding the process that’s about to happen again. “Then you can show us that planet you always spoke about.”

“The one with the water that flows upwards,” The other rattled off, their scared eyes darting around. “We’re here now, what do you need us to do?”

And she can see them staring at the growing patch of blood, eyes fearful and worried. “I’ll be fine, well-” She leans away from them, intent on getting them all far away from this place as she hits levers and switches. “-I’ll be fine, but this process is difficult, I really should have pamphlets for this, love a good pamphlet I do.” She winces, holding her side as her hand becomes slick.

“Doctor?” They asked together.

The Doctor ignores them and looks down, spotting the slight golden glow dancing across her hands. She looks up to her new friends, flashing them a reassuring smile… well, she hopes it is anyway, she was foolish and careless this time. “Stay back, please… this process can be dangerous, just… please stay back.” She goes back to watching the glow again, hearts thumping in her chest-

_“Hey, Doc,”_

Her blood runs cold, that voice, that nickname- His nickname for her, no one else’s, just _his_ , but that’s impossible now, and it has been for a long time.

 _“Got yourself in a fine mess, haven’t we?”_ His tone is in jest, light-hearted. _“Spose you’d just wanted to copy yours truly, didn’t ya?”_

“Graham?” She looks up, mouth suddenly dry when she sees his spectre leaning against the console, arms crossed and a grandfatherly expression on his face. Like he used to have, before- She closes her eyes, failed him like the others. What he did wasn't his job-

 _“Bingo, well, not exactly-”_ He grins at her.

 _“Alright gramps,”_ Said another voice, and she snaps her head to them, spotting Ryan, older and looking over at her. _“Ignore him, he’s a pain in the ass at the best of times, more so now he’s all-” She catches Graham roll his eyes at Ryan. “Space alieny.”_

 _“Space alieny? I wouldn’t necessarily call it that, son.”_ Graham frowns at Ryan.

“ _How are you here?_ ” She wants to scream, cry out that this isn’t fair- She said her goodbyes to Ryan, never got the chance for Graham… and Yaz, she got all the goodbye they ever needed together.

 _“Well, we ain’t here really, are we?”_ said Graham. _“Cause physically I’m still- well, yeah.”_

Believe it or not, there’s an uncomfortable silence in this morbid visage the Doctor realises. “So this is a figment, a cruel figment in my final moments?”

 _“Bit melodramatic, Doctor,”_ Cuts in another voice that causes her to freeze instantly, hand gripping against the console and she dreads to look at- _Her_.

“Yaz,” She closes her eyes and raises her head, taking a moment before opening them and staring at her. “My Yaz.”

 _“Hey, Doctor,”_ Yaz’ ghost smiles back at her.

“Why are you all here?” She breathes out. “Why do you-” She chokes on a sob, and there is movement behind her.

“Who are you talking to, Doctor?”

“Please, stay back, for the moment.” She looks over her shoulder at them, huddled together and scared. “It’ll be fine, but I’m-” She looks over to where her Fam are standing. “-I’m going to change.”

_“Change is good Doc, I mean, just ask me, right?”_

She turns back to Graham again. _“You’re not here, not really-”_ She can feel the fizzing starting again, the high whine of regeneration energy starting up, she pushes it back down again. Holding on to herself like her previous version and she really doesn’t blame him, his refusal to start the process again.

_“No, we ain’t here but-” Yaz said, looking over at her, her eyes kind._

_“This will be quick Doctor, but, we thought you should… see us, that’s why we’re here, not in the literal sense but your ship, the TARDIS, she remembers us-”_ Said Ryan, stepping forward and heading over to Graham.

 _“She remembers how we acted, how we spoke, we’re ghosts that’s true, but we’re her living memory of us,”_ Yaz said, looking over to her kindly. _“Her own way of speaking to you.”_

 _“And we’ve got some things to say to you, you daft old woman.”_ Graham finished for them.

She suspects their ghosts do, well Graham’s… in a way, sort of… last she saw of Ryan was him wishing both her and Yaz good luck and leaving. Said it wasn’t the same without his grandad, never would be again. The Doctor looks back at Graham again. “I’m so sorry Graham, for-”

Graham leans away from the console. _“For what?”_ He glances over to Ryan. _“I did what I did to save you and to save them, wouldn’t change that cause it was my choice and-”_ He sighs. _“-It’s not too bad where I am, it’s different but-”_ His spectre shrugs at her, and it’s so lifelike, so like _him_ . _“You once said that we'd change,”_

 _“And we all agreed that that was good, that’s we’d be better for it,”_ Yaz added to Graham’s statement.

 _“And we were,”_ Ryan included, a smile touching the corner of his mouth.

 _“So this is us, Doc, telling you that change is good and,”_ She watches as the spectre of Graham looks over to Ryan and Yaz. _“That it’s good to move on, to become different people, make us better than what we were.”_

 _“You helped us and taught us so much,”_ Ryan said, his eyes catching Graham’s before turning back to her. _“It’s time to let go, become something great again mate. Don’t hang on.”_

 _“And to show your new Fam around the universe,”_ Yaz pointed out, her gaze locked onto the worried faces of the two humans stood with their Doctor. _“They’ll be scared, so reassure them… that you’re still you, still that brilliant woman that fell into our lives-”_

Yaz ghost pauses as she takes a step forward, hand if it could, touching the Doctor’s. _“-and into mine, showed me everything the universe had to offer and I’ll never forget one minute of that Doctor, I never will.”_ The Doctor catches Yaz looking over to her new friends, and for a brief moment, she wonders if they’re really here. _“So show them the wonders as well, and the people after them.”_

 _“Like you did for us, Doc.”_ Graham finalised for them all, and she watches as they fade, her hand reaching out as her tears escape.

She feels the golden glow across her hands again, and she brings them up, watching it spread across her arms. “Be kind, Doctor, always… be kind.” And she lets go, head snapping upwards as the golden glow engulfs her entirely, her body and mind changing and becoming someone _new_.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly don't know what happened to Graham.
> 
> He's not dead but he's also not around, I don't know, the guy was very adamant that something happened to him as I wrote this.


End file.
